Building, Breaking, Rebuilding is part of a multifaceted academic and public history project consisting of the eponymous book, an exhibition, and a series of short films. Collectively, these three different facets—book, exhibition, and films—tell the stories of people and their experiences within and beyond the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) campus and its Bronzeville neighborhood since the university’s opening in 1893. Contributing authors, based in and outside of Chicago, discuss IIT against the backdrop of developments in architecture, art, design, engineering, faith, literature, music, philanthropy, politics, preservation, as well as urban history and planning. Although a handful of authors have written about IIT over the years, Building, Breaking, Rebuilding, is the first publication to intertwine the institution's history with that of the built environment.

Kevin Harrington is professor emeritus of architectural history at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago, where he began teaching in 1978. Born in Rochester, New York, he majored in history at Colgate University and studied the history of architecture and urban development at Cornell University, where he received his master’s degree and PhD. His thesis explored the treatment of architecture in the Encyclopédie. His research and publications have focused on Chicago’s architectural and urban development in relation to modern architecture and the modern city, especially considering the ways Chicago is typical or unique. He has taught IIT architecture and humanities programs in Italy and France. Harrington has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where he held the Ruth Carter Stevenson Chair; the Escola da Cidade, Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Brandenburg Technical University, Cottbus, Germany. He is coauthor, with Franz Schulze, of Chicago’s Famous Buildings (University of Chicago Press, 2003); and coauthor with Edward Windhorst, of Lake Point Tower: A Design History (Chicago Architecture Foundation, 2009). He edited Mies van der Rohe: Architect as Educator (Illinois Institute of Technology, 1986), to which he also contributed the essay “Order, space, proportion: Mies's curriculum at IIT.” He also wrote “Ideas in action: Hilberseimer and the redevelopment of the South Side of Chicago,” for In the shadow of Mies: Ludwig Hilberseimer, architect, educator and urban planner (Rizzoli, 1988). He is coeditor and contributor with Michelangelo Sabatino of Building, Breaking, Rebuilding (University of Minnesota Press, 2025) on IIT and neighboring Bronzeville.

Michelangelo Sabatino is a publicly engaged architectural historian, curator, and preservationist whose research and writing focuses primarily on modern architecture and the built environment. He is professor of architectural history and heritage at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) College of Architecture where he directs the PhD program and is the inaugural John Vinci Distinguished Research Fellow. Since arriving in Chicago in 2014, Sabatino coauthored Modern in the Middle: Chicago Houses 1929–1975 (Monacelli, 2020) with Susan Benjamin, which won the Modernism in America Award from Docomomo US. He is coeditor of Building, Breaking, Rebuilding. The Illinois Institute of Technology’s Campus and Chicago’s South Side (University of Minnesota Press, 2025) with Kevin Harrington. Building, Breaking, Rebuilding is the basis of a short film series and an exhibition. Sabatino is also author of The Edith Farnsworth House: Architecture, Preservation, Culture (Monacelli, 2024) and coeditor of Mies in His Own Words: Complete Writings, Speeches, Interviews (DOM Publishers, 2024) with Vittorio Pizzigoni.